Political power dressing at NY Fashion Week

A model walks the runway at the Creatures of Comfort presentation during New York Fashion Week at Gallery 1, Skylight Clarkson Sq on February 9, 2017 in New York City. Photo: AFP

The catwalk throbbed with politics in New York on Thursday as designers threw their weight behind a campaign to promote tolerance and La Perla gave women’s freedom a boost with a ready-to-wear debut.

The white bandanas worn by models strutting the runway for Tommy Hilfiger in Los Angeles were ubiquitous on the first official day of the new season as the glitterati battled near blizzard-like conditions and a winter snow storm in New York for the fashion week kickoff.

Calvin Klein dispatched bandanas with their invitations for Friday’s hotly anticipated debut by Belgian director of Dior fame, Raf Simons.

Thai-born designer to the smart New York woman, Thakoon Panichgul sported one on his wrist, as did Japanese-born designer Tadashi Shoji who chose the youth revolution of the 1960s-70s as his inspiration, drawing parallels with protests sweeping the world today against newly minted US President Donald Trump-albeit without naming him.

The bandanas are the brain child of the London-based Business of Fashion website, which is calling on the global fashion community to show support for “solidarity, human unity and inclusiveness amidst growing uncertainty and a dangerous narrative peddling division.”
“Wear a white bandana as a sign to the world that you believe in the common bonds of humankind-regardless of race, sexuality, gender or religion,” says the website, promoting the hashtag TiedTogether.

Organizers say the bandanas will be worn by designers, integrated into shows and worn by celebrity guests, not just in New York but as the global fashion bandwagon moves onto London, Milan and Paris.

They also urge people to donate to the American Civil Liberties Union-which took the US government to court over Trump’s now suspended travel ban-and the UN Refugee agency.

Naomi Campbell
“It’s a hot-button issue,” Thakoon told AFP backstage before his spring/summer 2017 presentation-ditching the official fall/winter season to offer clothes that go on sale immediately.

“I was born and raised in Thailand, I moved here with this idea that America is really where you can have the freedom to not only live, but to think as well and that fostered my creative process,” he said.

If there were no bandanas on the catwalk at La Perla, it was the star billing of the day, opened by British supermodel Naomi Campbell, 46, and closed by Kendall Jenner, 21, in an embroidered transparent dress.

But creative director Julia Haart told AFP there was nothing laid-back or unengaged about the Italian luxury lingerie giant’s first foray into ready-to-wear.

“I don’t think about it as politics, I think about it as women. I want women to feel strong, empowered, in control of their own destiny,” she said. “It’s all about the freedom baby.”

Building on the brand’s DNA, she crafted cups built into the clothing without wires to support a woman without constricting her. The fabrics were stretch to maximize movement.

“I want to destroy this idea that you either have to be either beautiful or comfortable. I want both. I want it all,” Haart said.
Her inspiration was the British garden, which she characterized as a riot of color and flowers that grow freely. The catwalk was set up to replicate a two-story “mansion” surrounded by roses and bougainvilleas.

Very sexy, the collection was fitted to the body with lots of lace, short dresses, lace on the pockets of pants and bras a dominant look.

‘Dress all women’
Shoji, who moved to the United States in 1973, drew a parallel between the inspiration for his collection and protests today sweeping the world and mentioned the women’s march on Washington on January 21.

Through his collection and by wearing the bandana, he told AFP that he wanted to send a message of “unity”.

“I’m an immigrant and 50 percent of my employees are immigrants,” he said. “The philosophy of my company is to dress all women, any country, any religion, any size, any color.”

Rag and Bone, like an increasing number of labels chose to ditch a traditional runway show, this season in favor of a presentation to look back on its 15 years in the business.

Chief executive Marcus Wainwright, originally from Britain, said it “felt tone deaf to do a show” after the US election.

The new collection was a retrospective of its classic look, such as tailored jeans, bomber jacket, plain sweater and long scarf.
“I think it’s about clarifying what we’ve been doing,” Wainright said in the program notes.

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Protect your skin while travelling

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Travelling can sometimes take away your skin’s natural glow. Exhaustion, ignorance, improper diet, hectic schedule and the changing weather are a deadly combination when it comes to ruining a glowing skin. Always moisturise your skin and keep yourself hydrated, says an expert.

Here are a few tips by Megha Shah, cosmetologist, Beauty and Curves Clinic to keep your skin healthy and supple while you travel.

• Keep your moisturiser handy: Apply intense moisturising cream the night before you are travelling, this will help you keep your skin hydrated and moisturised, saving you from the adverse weather conditions. Many places with direct sunlight or wind dry the skin and damages the texture. Re-apply the moisturiser while you travel to maintain a soft, supple skin irrespective of the weather conditions.
• Sunscreen: Irrespective of the season, apply sunscreen generously to save your skin from the harsh effects of UV rays. This way you can protect your skin from tanning and sunburns. Excessive exposure to the sun also result in early ageing therefore, sunscreen is an ideal product to save yourself.
• Cleanser: While travelling, your skin attracts a lot of dirt and dust which gets accumulated on your skin and causes breakouts. A cleanser will wash it all out and keep your skin clean and refreshed. It is also important to keep your cleanser with you as even a slight change in skincare products may act abruptly on your skin and cause vacation breakout.
• Comfort clothing: While going out, you will be engaged in activities like trekking, games or simple roaming around, exploring the places; comfortable clothing will save you from the horror of irritation, itching, and rashes that could happen due to uncomfortable, tight clothes. Various issues like eczema, infections, heat bumps are common with tight clothes, therefore wear loose, comfortable clothes. Skin allergies and some types of contact dermatitis need to be diagnosed and taken care as one observes them.

*Drink water: Apart from keeping your body happy, water is a boon for your skin as well. Often, we skip drinking water while travelling simply because of avoiding the hassle to find a restroom. But this habit not only disturbs your system but ruins your skin.

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China promotes traditional medicine to fight AIDS

China will double the number of AIDS patients it treats with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), officials have said, part of a broader push to increase the use of the ancient practice in the country’s medical system.

The promotion of TCM is part of a five-year plan from the State Council, China’s cabinet, to tackle HIV/AIDS.

“The number of people living with AIDS who are treated with traditional Chinese medicine should be twice what it was in 2015,” the State Council said on its website Sunday.

The plan outlined collaboration between traditional Chinese medicine departments and national health and family planning commissions “to find a therapeutic regimen which combines traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Western medicines”.

The TCM push aligns with a recent effort by the government to make the practice a priority for both development and publicity.

TCM, dating back thousands of years, treats ailments using herbal mixtures and physical therapies such as acupuncture and cupping.

The science behind such remedies has long been questioned. Last month medical researchers disputed a study claiming that acupuncture could cure babies of colic.

In late December the Chinese legislature passed its first TCM law, which will allow practitioners to be licensed and make it easier for them to open clinics.

There are about 450,000 TCM practitioners across the country, according to the State Council Information Office.

The government sees the practice as a cost-saving alternative to modern healthcare.

The new initiative to tackle HIV/AIDS will aim to reduce “AIDS-related homosexual behavior” by at least 10 percent and mother-to-children transmission rates to less than four percent.

In a 2015 report China told the UN that it had 501,000 cases of HIV/AIDS as of the end of 2014.

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Snap’s older user base slowly growing

The logo of messaging app Snapchat is seen at a booth at TechFair LA, a technology job fair, in Los Angeles, California, US. Photo: Reuters

Snap Inc’s Snapchat lags far behind rival social media outlets Facebook Inc, Instagram and Twitter Inc in reaching older users, but the soon-to-be public company has been growing that crucial audience, analysis by MoffettNathanson of a regulatory filing showed.

As Snap prepares for its planned stock market debut in March, luring users older than 35 to the mobile app known for user-generated photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours is seen as key in driving its overall growth. While advertisers covet younger consumers, those 18- to 24-year-olds can be notoriously fickle when it comes to social media preferences, often moving on to the next big thing.

Snap said in its S-1 filing on Thursday that its younger-skewing user base leaves the company more vulnerable than traditional media outlets to changing consumer tastes, and that it could have trouble reaching older demographics.

Snapchat reaches 35 percent of all Americans, according to research firm MoffettNathanson’s report, but that reach is concentrated among younger users. During the fourth quarter of 2016, Snapchat reached 70 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds, but just 23 percent of people over 35.

By comparison, Facebook reached 88 percent of people over 35 during the same period. Instagram reached 45 percent and Twitter 42 percent of that age group.

Still, Snapchat’s reach for those older users is up from just 8 percent at the beginning of 2016, suggesting that segment is growing.

Meanwhile 58 percent of Snapchat’s daily active users, a key metric for advertisers, are between the ages of 13 and 24, according to the MoffettNathanson report.

“We think if anything, Snapchat is closest to Instagram today in terms of demographic breakdown and growth profile. We don’t think it will ever reach the penetration or 35+ saturation of a Facebook, nor will its ascent be as fast, however we also don’t believe it will flame out and ultimately fail as spectacularly as Twitter either,” analysts said in the report released on Tuesday.

Twitter’s lack of user growth since it went public in 2013 has been a major reason for its falling stock price, which has tumbled from more than $69 a share at the end of 2013 to trade around $18 per share.

Another potential source of concern for Snapchat and its investors is the amount of time older users spend on the platform. During the fourth quarter, users over 35 spent just three minutes per day on Snapchat, down from five minutes per day in the second quarter, its high point for the year among that age group.

Since ads are placed between photos and videos that users scroll through, enticing them to stay on the mobile app for longer periods of time allows Snap to sell more to advertisers.

Snap declined to comment beyond the information in its regulatory filings.

When it comes to digital advertising, Facebook and Alphabet’s Google dominate the market. Together, the two are expected to account for 60 percent of the U.S. market in 2017, according to eMarketer.

“We have to root for companies like Snapchat to bring alternatives,” said Ian Schafer, founder and chairman of ad agency Deep Focus, noting a lack of revenue growth in 2016 for companies other than Facebook or Google. “Everyone else was either flat or shrunk.”

Victor Piñeiro, senior vice president of social media for digital agency Big Spaceship, compared Snapchat’s ascendance among younger users to how Viacom Inc’s MTV courted teens in the 1980s and 1990s.

“They’ve so squarely nailed that demographic. I think there’s plenty of space for Snapchat in this coming year,” said Piñeiro. “What I’m curious to see is how it grows beyond the under-35 demographic.”

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Gecko sheds skin to avoid becoming lunch

Combintion of a Geckolepis Megalepis, a specimen of a newly-discovered gecko (L). The gecko photographed after its scale loss, with inset indicating the transparent ‘tear zone’ at the base of a scale. Photo: AFP

A newly-discovered gecko uses a weird but ingenious tactic to evade capture: it strips down to its pink, naked skin and flees, leaving its attacker with a mouthful of scales, scientists have revealed.

The hard, dense flakes come off with “exceptional ease” and grow back in a matter of weeks, a team of researchers reported in the journal PeerJ this week.

Dubbed Geckolepis megalepis, the little lizard was previously confused with another member of the family of fish-scale geckos, known for their large, sheddable scales.

But closer scientific scrutiny revealed it is a species quite apart-boasting the largest scales of any gecko. And it is more skilled than any other at shedding them at even the slightest touch.

G. megalepis is resident in Madagascar.

“This remarkable ability has made these geckos a serious challenge to scientists who want to study them,” said a statement from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

“One of the main ways reptile species can be told apart is by their scale patterns, but these geckos lose their scales with such ease that the patterns are often lost,” added study co-author Mark Scherz.

Methods have included trying to catch them with bundles of cotton wool or luring them untouched into plastic bags.

“You have to think outside the box with Geckolepis,” said Scherz. “They are a nightmare to identify.”

Without its scales, the matchbox-sized critter is not much to look at-resembling a piece of pink, raw chicken. But alive.

Apart from noting the exceptionally large scales, the team used micro-CT scanning to examine skeletons for other distinguishing characteristics, such as skull width and length.

Among G. megalepis’ unique traits is a smaller “attachment area”-where the scales meet the skin-than other fish-scale geckos. This is what allows the flakes to tear from the skin so easily, without leaving a scar.

The creature’s name was derived from the Greek megas for “very large”, and lepis for “scale.”

It is the first new gecko species to be described in 75 years.

Reptiles, including geckos, are known for the ability to shed a body part, often all or part of the tail, to escape predator attack.

Few geckos survive to adulthood with their original tails intact, the study authors said.

Scientists are interested in the regeneration ability of lizards for restorative medicine, possibly re-growing lost limbs for accident survivors one day.

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High-speed internet 'in all unions by 2018'

The government has planned to bring the country's all unions under high-speed internet connectivity by 2018.

"We've already brought upazila offices under broadband internet connectivity and steps have been taken to bring all the unions under digital connectivity," director general ICT (DOICT) department Banamali Bhowmick told a function held at the deputy commissioner's conference room in Brahmanbaria on Thursday.

Trinomuler Tathyajanala of ICT division and Tathyaseba Barta Sangstha (TSB) organised the function to provide training to the entrepreneurs of UDCs of Brahmanbaria district on writing reports and features, outsourcing and e-commerce.

Bhowmick said the government has undertaken two projects—Info Sarkar-3 and Establishing Digital Connectivity projects to bring villages under high speed internet connectivity, reports UNB news agency.

The Infosarker-3 project has already been approved by the executive committee for National Economic Council (ECNEC), he said adding the project would bring some 2,600 unions under broadband internet connectivity and the remaining unions will get high speed internet connectivity under establishing Digital Connectivity project, he said.

Ajit Kumar Sarkar said the government has been building capacity of the entrepreneurs of union digital centers (UDCs) to write reports and features to inform grassroots-level development and success stories of the government to people using ICT.

People will get empowered if they are given necessary information of their livelihood, he said.

The 3-year Trinomuler Tathyajanala programme is being implemented with the advisory support of Access to Information (A2I) Programme of prime minister's office (PMO) to create 10,000 info leaders through providing training to the entrepreneurs of UDCs. TSB is working as implementing associate.

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Algorithms: the managers of our digital lives

A woman playing the popular dating simulation game Ikemen series produced by Japanese mobile content business company Cybird in Tokyo. AFP file photo

Algorithms are a crucial cog in the mechanics of our digital world, but also a nosy minder of our personal lives and a subtle, even insidious influence on our behaviour.

They have also come to symbolise the risks of a computerised world conditioned by commercial factors.

A gift from a Persian scientist

Long before they were associated with Google searches, Facebook pages and Amazon suggestions, algorithms were the brainchild of a Persian scientist.

The term is a combination of mediaeval Latin and the name of a ninth century mathematician and astronomer, Al-Khwarizmi, considered the father of algebra.

A bit like a kitchen recipe, an algorithm is a series of instructions that allows you to obtain a desired result, according to sociologist Dominique Cardon, who wrote “What Algorithms Dream Of”.

Initially known mainly to mathematicians, the term spread as computers developed.

The brains of computer programmes are algorithms, and are thus a central cog in the internet machine.

Where are algorithms found?

“We are literally surrounded by algorithms,” says Olivier Ertzscheid, a French professor of information technology and communication.

“Every time you consult Facebook, Google or Twitter you are exposed to choices” that algorithms calculate for us, and we are also sometimes influenced by them, he told AFP.

They reign in the finance sector, one example being high frequency trading programmes, which can execute trades in milliseconds driven by algorithms that analyze a range of market and economic factors. Their speed and rule-based nature means they can make markets volatile and have triggered so-called flash crashes in the foreign exchange and stock markets.

Police forces increasingly use algorithms to predict where and when crimes are most likely to be committed. Predpol, a software programme, claims to have contributed to double-digit drops in burglaries, robberies and vehicle theft in several US states and is also used in Kent, southern England.

Satellite tracking and surveillance would not have reached the point they are at today without sophisticated algorithms.

How Google began

In the 1990s, PageRank (PR) was created in Stanford, California by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founders.

PR made it possible to class web pages by order of popularity. It became the heart of the Google research engine, which responds to key words within a fraction of a second. In addition to PR, Google uses “a dozen algorithms... to deal with spam, detect copyright infractions” and handle other crucial tasks, Ertzscheid explains.

Facebook and the ‘filter bubble’

Facebook uses sophisticated algorithms to offer its more than 1.8 billion users worldwide personalised content, in particular on its News Feed service which compiles messages from “friends”, and shares articles selected according to each users social media contacts.

One risk posed by such a system is that of “The Filter Bubble” according to Eli Pariser, who developed the concept in a book of the same name. Being surrounded by information filtered by algorithms based on one’s friends, tastes and previous digital searches and choices, someone surfing the internet can be plunged unwittingly into a “cognitive bubble” that just reinforces their convictions and perspective on the world.

Algorithms and the truth

Another risk was exposed during the last US presidential election—the prevalence of so-called fake news or hoaxes on Facebook and other social media. Facebook’s algorithms were not designed to distinguish true from false—a feat that is difficult even for artificial intelligence—but the popularity of information.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has sought to deflect criticism that it had been used to fuel the spread of misinformation that may have impacted the presidential race, but the company responded to growing criticism by saying new tools would be provided so users could call attention to controversial content.

Thinking for us?

Cardon says four main “families” of web algorithms exist. One calculates the popularity of web pages, another assesses their authority within the digital community, and a third evaluates the notoriety of social network users. The fourth attempts to predict the future.

This last one is “problematic” for the sociologist, because it tries to anticipate our future behaviour based on clues we have left on the internet in the past.

It shows up on Amazon for example as book recommendations based on past purchases.

“We build the calculators, but in return they build us” too, Cardon concluded.

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